The Doctor Will See You Now

Shaun Brockhurst, otherwise known as dubstep badass Doctor P, has long been regarded as one of the heaviest names in the industry. He has Dj’d under the names Picto, Slum Dogz, and Sounds Destructive since he decided to start producing electronic, and his work has been nothing but gold since. We got to sit down with the Circus Records’ co-founder at Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare in Pomona to see what he had to say! Check it out below:

ES: I know that you, Flux, and Trolley Snatcha have been friends since your childhood, so is there anything embarrassing you can tell us about them as kids?

Yeah, there’s too much embarrassing stuff, I need to think of something mildly embarrassing. Eh, when I first met them they used to where those black shirts with like fire on them. They had matching fire dragon shirts. I don’t think they’d be seen in them together now.

ES: So how did your relationship with Flux ultimately develop into Circus records and what was your goal when starting it?

Well, when we first met, I was actually friends with a guy who I went to school with, and Josh (Flux) was friends with his brother. So, I used to hang out with Mark, and Josh used to hang out with his little brother Luke, so we were kinda in the same house together, hanging out with different people. We were both into guitar and we would talk about it sometimes. Then we kind of randomly decided to start a band together when we were 16 and 14. It was obviously like a terrible teenage band. We did like System of a Down covers and stuff.

ES: Can we find any of that on Soundcloud?

I dunno about Soundcloud, but I reckon we probably have recordings somewhere, but I’m not going to put them up online (laughs). But yeah, so we did that and just kinda became friends. We got into to making electronic music. But, we’ve never really made any together, in the whole time we’ve been working together we’ve only done like three tracks together.

ES: Could you give us some insight on balancing a record label and your own career?

Well nowadays, the label has gone beyond my hands. I’m not as involved now. Back in the day, 3, 4 years ago it was me and Flux doing everything. It’s not really like that now. We’ve got a whole team. We still have meetings and stuff though.

ES: So, when you’re working on music and you get “writer’s block,” what do you do to alleviate that? Do you start a track off of a random stroke of inspiration?

I dunno if writer’s block exists. I don’t kind of look for inspiration. It just kind of happens sometimes. Like sometimes I sit down to make a track and spend eight hours and make nothing. Sometimes I sit down to look up a video on Youtube and realize I made a track in the last hour. There’s no way of really doing it on purpose, it kinda happens or it doesn’t.

ES: Okay, so it’s old news at this point, but Skream is quoted saying “Dubstep is just a name now, it doesn’t have a meaning anymore, and the movement is over.” Being such a prominent name in the industry, do you think that is the case?

I feel like he said it once, and everyone in the world is talking about it. I feel like he didn’t mean it quite as much as everyone thinks he did. Dubstep was quite a sort of cultural revolution. It went from being people like bands, to everyone liking electronic music. I don’t feel like somethings over, I think we’ve come out of the shift into whatever we’re into now. I don’t feel like it’s the end, I feel like the movement is on to the next thing. I think when people listen to music when they’re teenagers, it becomes part of their life. I still listen to the music I listened to when I was a teenager.

ES: So what exactly would that be?

System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, a lot of drum n bass. But yeah, people like our generation when this generation, when you’re 40 or 50, are still gonna be listening to this stuff.I know that sounds weird now, but when everyone is growing up, it’s not gonna be weird. The kids then are going to be listening to something completely different.

ES: On that note, what was it like working with the notorious Method Man on your track “The Pit”?

For the track, I made the beat on my own at first. When I was making it I could just hear Method Man over it. I thought, I want Method Man on this track, so I literally emailed my manager saying, ‘I made this, I’d like to get Method Man’ and through some sort of insane luck and amazing coincidence, we managed to actually achieve it. Basically, we sent it to Adam F, who knew Method Man from back in the day, and Adam said, ‘he’s not going to like what you’ve done, but if you do this, this, and this, make it a bit more hip hoppy, he might.’ So Adam actually worked on it, and we ended up collab-ing. He played it to Method Man, and he liked it. Adam actually flew to New York to record it with him. I couldn’t be there, it wasn’t even physically possible for me to get there. I skyped in though. They recorded it without me even hearing it, but when they sent it through I loved it.

ES: The music video was like watching a video game almost, what influence did you have on that and where did the whole thing come about?

Well the production company did a video for Skism about six months ago or something, and we liked the video a lot. When we came to do this video we thought, maybe they could do something like that for us. So we sent them the track and they really wanted to do it, because everyone loves Method Man. Literally every remix we’ve had that we’ve sent to them, they’ve been like, ‘yep’ They came up with the storyboard and the ideas, and we let them do their thing on it.

ES: So you’ve been slowly dropping off singles off your upcoming 8 track EP. Should we be expecting another single or the full EP.

DP: I don’t even know what I’m doing now. I’m just making music. I don’t want to put out an EP unless it’s worthwhile. So I’d rather wait until it’s gonna be an EP worth buying. I’ve got the next singles, but I want to follow with something quite quickly. I’ve got a track called ‘Going Gorillas’. It’s like, another 175 screechy thing.

ES: So, we reached out to our audience to see what they wanted to ask you, and the most popular question was, ‘How do you feel about some other dubstep producers like Borgore partnering with more mainstream producers like Steve Aoki and people like Waka Flacka, and do you think that it will ultimately improve or degrade the established culture?

I dunno, it really depends what you think of as dubstep. Dubstep for me, if it has Miley Cyrus on it, it’s not dubstep. I suppose, if you make a really great track and it has Britney Spears on it, it’s still a really great track. I did a track with Will.I.Am. A couple of years ago. It didn’t end up coming out or anything, but it was like a proper dance floor electronic track. I was willing to have my name with Will.I.Am.

ES: If you could tell us the amount of people you’ve killed in GTA what would it be?

Pretty low actually, I don’t spend a lot of time at home. My home life is quite busy, so I’ll play for like an hour when I can. I haven’t even gotten online yet.

ES: I went to Snow Globe two years ago, and I remember you had to cancel your set because of the birth of your son. How do you want your kid to see the electronic music industry growing up?

I feel like no one thinks their dad has a cool job, do they? Everyone thinks their dad is geeky and uncool. So it doesn’t matter what I do, he’s gonna think it’s uncool. By the time he gets to being a teenager, I’m sure he’ll start getting into it. He likes pressing buttons and making sounds in the studio though.

ES: So I understand the P in Doctor P stands for Picto, your nickname, do your friends still call you that?

Well my manager still does. You remember how old Nokia’s had predictive text? Well when peole would type my name, Shaun, in, it would change to ‘picto’. So people just started calling me that. It stuck.

ES: What’s happened at your worst show?

Nobody turned up. I’ve literally played to empty rooms. I mean the worst I’ve heard of was Flux, during one of his first ever shows, it was so empty that even the bar staff left. I don’t think I’ve ever played to a room that empty.

ES: One last question, what is your favorite track at the moment?

I reckon ‘Bad Intentions’ by Zomboy. When I first heard it I was like eh, its just a 128 noisy thing, but every time I play it I like it a bit more.

Well there you have it folks: flaming dragon shirts, System of A Down covers, and upcoming releases!

Be sure to support Shaun’s badassery by listening to his music and liking his social media links below:

Hi There!
My name is Noah. I'm studying economics at Pitzer College in sunny Southern California. I started this website in April of 2013 because I love electronic music, and hopefully you're here because you do too.
The show "Grey's Anatomy" was based off of my experiences as a third grader, and my favorite color is the number seven.